


The Master and the Kid

by ModernWizard



Series: The Happy Famverse [7]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Autism Spectrum, Because this is the Happy Famverse gdi!, Bill and Razor were friends goddammit, Gen, ND Master, Neuroqueer, Neuroqueer Master, Now they can have a happy reunion!!!, Other, S10 finale fixit sort of, The Master did not kill Bill no no no no, They each thought that the other died, the Master is rather surprisingly okay with the kid, the Master knows what it's like to be overstimulated, the Master likes odd socks, the Master would be an amazing clown and you can't deny it, where stupid shit doesn't happen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23689771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernWizard/pseuds/ModernWizard
Summary: The Master buys weird socks, entertains a kid with his sound effects, and reunites with Bill, who he thought was dead. [S10 finale happened differently in this AU. Bill and Razor were actually allies!]
Relationships: The Master & Bill Potts, Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: The Happy Famverse [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1694899
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	The Master and the Kid

**Author's Note:**

> The alternative S10 finale events in this story may sound familiar to all 2.5 of you who have also read [Where There's Life, There's Hope.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11413839) And that's because I liked the concept of Razor and Bill being pro-cyborg revolutionaries so much that I'm using it again!!

_ [THE MASTER exits a small store, Sock It to Me, in a covered shopping arcade. Striding along, he pulls his purchases one by one out of his bag, waving them around and singing to himself.] _

THE MASTER: Socks socks socks, I’ve beaten the clocks and gotten socks for my box.  _ [Flaps around a pair of socks with exploding head emojis and the legend ‘I’m sorry. My brain just noped out.’]  _ Now I will have boxes and boxes of snarky, snarky sockses!

_ [THE MASTER passes the arcade’s security booth and notices a SECURITY PERSON talking on the phone while rolling eyes at a KID. THE KID is of average height and about seven years old, with cool, medium brown skin, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans. Tightly balled on the edge of a bench, THE KID shakes their head loosely, pulling their hair, kind of like THE MASTER does, obviously agitated.] _

THE KID: Yeek! Yeek! Yeekyeekyeek! 

SECURITY PERSON _[on the phone]:_ Yeah, no, it’s no use. I _thiiiiiiiink_ maybe it’s a girl, and it’s probably lost, but I can’t get two words out of her. Dunno what to do.

THE KID  _ [louder] _ : Yeek! Yeek! Yeekyeekyeek! Yeek! Yeek! Yeekyeekyeek!

THE MASTER: Who cares what gender the kid is? They’re upset! Have you maybe tried doing something about  _ that? _

SECURITY PERSON  _ [slamming down the phone]:  _ Do what? She won’t stop yanking at her hair, even when you pull her hands away, and she won’t say anything that makes sense. I guess she’s lost, and she can hear, but she won’t say anything except ‘Yeek.’ So yeah. She’s useless.  _ [Lowers voice.] _ Probably a little  _ [whistles two notes, pointing to head] _ cuckoo, if you know what I mean.

THE MASTER  _ [with disdainful eyebrow maneuver] _ : Yeek.  _ You’re _ useless.

THE KID: Yeek! Yeek! Yeekyeekyeek! Yeek! Yeek! Yeekyeekyeek!

_ [THE MASTER, putting his purchases back in his shopping bag, surveys THE KID. Then he sits down on the bench across the aisle from them.] _

THE MASTER: Hey, kid. You seem like you’re kind of overwhelmed, so I’m just gonna sit over here. Don’t mind me.

THE KID: Yeek! Yeek! Yeekyeekyeek! 

_[THE MASTER_ _crosses his legs and starts playing percussion on himself. He snaps, claps, flicks his fingers, slaps his thighs, hits his chest lightly, clicks his tongue, pops his finger out of his cheek, and makes a rhythm from the sounds. He plays slowly at first, then goes faster, faster, and faster. Finally the performance ends in a flurry of sounds like a full bag of popcorn kernels all bursting simultaneously.]_

_ [THE KID gapes at him. THE MASTER meets their eyes with one of his inimitable eyebrow bounces, cocks his head, and makes a sound effect like a question.] _

THE MASTER: *Pop?*  _ [Beat. THE KID glances down, then over their shoulder, clearly wondering who he’s popping to.] _ *Pop?*  _ [After this one, he lifts his chin encouragingly to THE KID.] _

THE KID  _ [clumsily making a much smaller imitation of THE MASTER’S sound]: _ *Pop.*

THE MASTER  _ [with a flashing smile]: _ *Pop  _ pop!* _

THE KID  _ [more slowly, with great concentration]: _ *Pop.*  _ [Beat.] _ *Pop.*

THE MASTER: *Pop  _ pop! _ Clap!*

THE KID  _ [finally getting the hang of it, brightening]: _ *Pop. Pop. Clap!*

_ [THE MASTER continues to percuss, and THE KID continues to volley the sound back at him. THE MASTER gradually picks up the pace and then stands, adding shuffles and stomps to the mix. THE KID adds little skipping steps, which THE MASTER imitates. Soon they have a stanza of about fifteen or twenty various sound effects, which they’re both performing in dancing antiphony.] _

_ [THE KID starts pulling on their nose, sniffing, and flapping their hands, their smirk becoming wider and wider. THE MASTER puzzles over this and then realizes that they’re imitating some of his non-percussive movements. He laughs, missing his percussion cues. THE KID hams it up, doing a rhythm of various nose pulls, sniffs, and flaps, instead of percussion sounds. THE MASTER collapses on the floor, laughing.] _

THE KID  _ [tugging on his arm]: _ Enh! Enh!  _ [When THE MASTER meets their eyes, they sign.] _ Are you okay? Are you okay?

THE MASTER  _ [sitting up quickly, signing]: _ Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just that you were funny.

_ [THE MASTER and THE KID continue signing unless otherwise noted.] _

THE KID: You’re funny too! Are you deaf or spectrum? Or is talking hard for you too?

THE MASTER: I can hear. And talking’s not hard for me. It’s very easy — almost too easy. I talk all the time. I’m even talking now, inside my head, even though you can’t hear me. Sometimes I can’t sleep because I’m talking too much!

THE KID: Are you anxious? Do you have an anxiety? You should do the *pop pop snap,* and then maybe you’ll calm down and sleep! 

THE MASTER  _ [with a rueful laugh]: _ No — you see — that won’t work. I know all my own tricks. Can’t fool myself.

THE KID: You’re on spectrum too! So am I!

THE MASTER: Spectrum of what?

THE KID: Autism!

THE MASTER: I am? Okay. I guess.

THE KID  _ [citing evidence] _ : You flap and sniff and know the spectrum!

THE MASTER: I am also definitely on the spectrum because you know what else a spectrum is? It’s a band of colors that you can see when a beam of light refracts through something and divides out by...well...by color. Like a rainbow is a spectrum!

THE KID: Like a Pride flag! My mum’s gay.

THE MASTER: Hey, me too! All the cool people are gay — or related to queer people — or have queer friends. It’s just a fact. Hey, speaking of which, where is your mum? Are you here by yourself?

THE KID: Well, I’m not here by myself. You’re here. But I was here by myself before you came. But before that I was with my mum.

THE MASTER: Are you lost? Is that why you were upset?

THE KID: Yeah, it was too much, and I was having a moment. When I have a moment, I have to go ‘Yeek!’ till I feel better. I was having a moment, and then she was gone. I didn’t know where she was, so I had a worser moment.

THE MASTER: Understandable. Hey, I’d be upset too in your situation! But I think I know how you can find your mum. If you tell the dingus at the security desk  _ [points] _ your first and last name, or you write it down for them, they can call over the loudspeaker and tell your mum to find you here.

THE KID: They look like a cop. I don’t like cops. I don’t want to talk to cops.

THE MASTER: Uh. Okay. Hmmm… I’ll tell you what. You tell me your name, and I can talk to them for you.

THE KID: You tell me your name first. I don’t give my name to strangers.

THE MASTER: You can call me Master.

THE KID: Is that your first name or your last name?

THE MASTER: I only have the one.

THE KID: Because you’re famous?

THE MASTER: Universally!

THE KID: I’m Casey Bellingham.  _ [Speaks aloud, slowly and carefully.] _ My name...is...Casey… Bellingham.

[THE MASTER turns to the SECURITY PERSON, who has been gawping at him and CASEY with revolted fascination for the past half an hour.]

THE MASTER: You!  _ [Snaps his fingers. The SECURITY PERSON jumps.] _ This child’s name is Casey Bellingham. Make yourself useful, and page their parent, guardian, and/or caretaker, from whom they’ve become separated.  _ [The SECURITY PERSON continues to stare. THE MASTER, who is so done with this stupidity and also rather exhausted, loses his temper, clenches his fists, and begins to shake.] _ NOW!!!!  _ [The SECURITY GUARD obeys.] _

_ [After CASEY’S parent, guardian, and/or caretaker has been paged, THE MASTER and CASEY sit on a bench near the security booth, chatting. Suddenly CASEY rockets up and races away, calling at the top of their lungs.] _

CASEY: Mummy-Mum! Mummy-Mum!

_ [The object of CASEY’S glee appears in the crowd, and it’s none other than BILL POTTS! She’s so much older, wiser, and tireder than the young woman in her mid-twenties who traveled with the Twelfth Doctor. After all, she did spend a decade in a polluted Cyber dystopia on the edge of a black hole… Now in her mid-thirties, she has darker circles under her eyes, a slight hunch, and the deliberate, marching plod of a Cyber person. Though she might seem decrepit, a golden glow suffuses her chest, beaming gently through her clothes. It’s the light of her Cyber heart, brightening when she sees her kid. Tears fill her big brown eyes, and her full lips curve into the widest of smiles, and it’s clear that BILL is just as full of joy and wit and heart as she was when she met the Doctor — perhaps even more so.] _

BILL: Casey, honey, sweetheart! I’m so glad I found you!

CASEY  _ [aloud]: _ Mummy-Mum! Mummy-Mum!  _ [Throws themself at BILL, who swings them up into her arms and hugs them tightly. BILL’S heartlight radiates stronger and stronger, encompassing both her and CASEY in a sphere of gilded warmth.] _

_ [THE MASTER, for once utterly stricken of words, beholds BILL, someone he thought he’d never see again. He blinks hard, rapidly, flicking his hair from his eyes repeatedly, as if it’s an obstruction of his sight that’s giving him trouble. He sniffs loudly, a behavior that we recognize, but then he follows this by fidgeting with his beard, stroking it so that his fingers meet at the front of his chin. He does this again and again, his eyes fluttering, as he sways from foot to foot, bouncing.] _

THE MASTER: No no no. No no no. No no no. Can’t be. You’re dead. Can’t be. I lost you. Can’t be. Lost my heart. Lost my gift. Lost ten years. Lost you. No no no. No no no. Can’t be. You can’t be.  _ [Cocks head almost completely sideways.] _ But what if…? What if? What if...it is? Can be. Could be. Might be. Should be.  _ [Closes eyes, squeezes fists hard, as if he’s going to will it into reality.] _ Should be! Really should be! But it isn’t. Can’t be. Isn’t. Can’t be.

BILL  _ [towing CASEY by the hand, rushing to THE MASTER]: _ Hey, thanks. Casey said that you talked to them when no one else would. Really connected with them, calmed them down. Yeah — they think you’re the greatest, some sort of master or something.

CASEY  _ [signing]: _ It’s their name! That’s the Master!

BILL  _ [not paying attention to CASEY]: _ Anyway, really appreciate it.  _ [Takes in THE MASTER, who’s rocking and muttering to himself. Smiles a smile of familiarity — she knows what body language like that means.] _ Okay. Yeah. Well, mate, just know that you’re not the only one that this day has taken a lot out of. The kid’s exhausted, and so am I. And it looks like you’re pretty shaken up too, but I hope you’re listening to me when I say that — really — I appreciate what you did with Casey. It was very sweet and empathetic and helpful, so...thanks.  _ [She makes a few of THE MASTER’S mouth percussion noises, chuckles to herself, and then turns to go.] _

_ [The percussion sounds seem to snap THE MASTER out of his frantic murmuring. He raises his head. He knows that laugh! Then, suddenly, he’s back in action, hurtling toward her, chattering.] _

THE MASTER: Bill? Bill Potts? Wilhelmina Jessamine Potts?  _ [Bounding around BILL and CASEY in tight revolutions.]  _ You’re alive? You’re alive?!  _ You’re alive?!! _ Ah hah hah hah hah! How are you alive?! The last time I saw you, we were on that colony ship in the asshole of the universe, caught between the factions. My two regenerations, Twit the Elder and Twit the Younger, were having a thoroughly stupid fight about whether I should side with the Doctor. And you were trying to keep us from killing each other,  _ [stops moving for the next clause]  _ which was a very laudable effort — stupid and futile, but very laudable — but then you saw the Doctor fall. And I was like, ‘Well, awesome, good riddance to bad rubbish. Now I can fly the coop and leave the Vault without any lingering guilt because they’re gone! Gone gone gone! Ah hah hah hah hah, wheeeeeeeee!’ Well, I don’t think that I said the ‘Wheeeeeeeee!’ part because I wasn’t so bouncing-off-the-walls at that point.

BILL  _ [trying to track THE MASTER as he zooms around]: _ Do I know you? 

CASEY  _ [aloud, happily]: _ Yeeeeeeee!  _ [Signing.] _ The Master’s dancing!

THE MASTER  _ [talking over BILL and CASEY, plowing on with his story] _ : But then you ran out in the gunfire to help them, and I’m like, ‘What the fuck  _ [glances at CASEY] _ ...heck are you doing that for?’ 

CASEY  _ [giggling, signing unless otherwise noted]: _ Mummy-Mum, the Master just said ‘fuck!’

THE MASTER _ [no longer revolving, but now hopping from side to side, foot to foot, still continuing with his story] _ : ‘You’re the one who’s wanted to piss off from them too for, like, ever! Now’s your chance —  _ our _ chance! Leave ‘em.’ Except, of course, you didn’t, because of your heart — your wonderful, amazing, glowing, warm, electric Cyber heart that just cares way too much about anyone, even when they’re not worth caring about.

BILL  _ [pressing her hand to her chest]: _ My heart? How do you know about my heart? Are you—?  _ [Light surges from her heart as she dares to hope.] _

THE MASTER: So you went off to save the useless Doctor’s life, and I — I — I lost you.  _ [Momentary silence.]  _ I regenerated and looked for you everywhere — all over the battlefield, all over the city — but I couldn’t find you, neither among my people, nor among the Expansionists. I decided that you must have died and that not even the heart that I made for you, the one that brought you back the first time, the one with the heartlight that you used in all sorts of helpful and sickeningly compassionate ways that I never would have dreamed up, the heart that was supposed to keep you going so that you could have a long and happy life without that miserable version of the Doctor, the one that was supposed to fill the hole in your chest left by traveling with the Doctor, the one that  _ I _ made  _ [clasps hands over chest]  _ — it had failed. My work had failed. My gift had failed. My — my — my — my heart, Bill! My  _ heart _ had failed. It was...gone. It was all...just...gone.

BILL  _ [squinting at this unfamiliar person who talks like he knows her, but that she’s never seen before]: _ Razor…? No! 

THE MASTER  _ [body still, but face active, eyebrows cocking, nose flaring, mouth describing all sorts of shapes]:  _ But you’re now! And you’re new! And you’re you! And you’re here — alive! Alive alive alive, whooooooo hoo hoo hoo hoo!  _ [Rotates in place in ecstatic dance, circling with small stomping steps, waving arms over head.] _ Oh wow. Oh no. Oh wow. Let me look at you. Is it really you? Really really really? It is! It is! It really, really, really is! Oh, Bill, you’re just so...Bill and so very much...Bill and totally, unequivocally, immeasurably, indubitably,  _ Bill! _

BILL  _ [laughing]: _ Razor! It is you!

_ [In an instant, THE MASTER transforms back into Razor. His body, build, features, and clothes remain the same, but he nevertheless becomes a completely different person. His loose, nervy posture shrinks into something more tentative and obsequious. He holds his hands before him, partly open, just above the waist, as if he might have to beg or placate any moment. His smile assumes a reactive rubberiness, ready to mirror his interlocutor’s expression as soon as it changes. He speaks in an exaggeratedly accented voice, full of phantom consonants at the beginnings and ends of words.] _

THE MASTER: Well, yes, of course, dearest person. Of course this is your friend of old times. You know I am master of clever disguise, no? And perhaps the costume is making some change — well, actually, costume always changes, because I am always being prepared for my close-up — but the questionable accent never does, yes? Ahem. Wait. This voice — I think maybe is closer to Turkish. Is just me? Or you hear it too? Dammit — I am  _ trying _ for Russian, specifically accent of Muscovite who learns the English at age of seventy and never is not pronouncing it like the Russian. But I am thinking I may have migrated too far south.

BILL  _ [flinging her arms around THE MASTER for a short hug]: _ Oh! Wow! I thought you were dead too! Thought I’d never see you again!  _ [Blinks, squeezing tears from her eyes. Wipes face. Addresses CASEY.] _ Hey, Casey, this is one of my friends that I’ve told you about. They — uh…  _ Glances to THE MASTER.] _ Is that okay?

THE MASTER: As long as it’s not ‘it.’

BILL: Remember all those stories I told you about being stuck in that awful city where everyone had to have mechanical lungs put in just so they could breathe the air? 

CASEY: Right, and you were a soldier, fighting against the bad Cyber people, who wanted to invade all the other cities and control people’s minds. And he saved your life, and you were the resistance!  _ [Looks at THE MASTER.] _ He saved your life? The Master saved your life? Wow! But why do you keep calling him Razor?

BILL: Okay.  _ [Digs phone out of purse. Hands it to THE MASTER.] _ Type your number in there.  _ [He does and gives her phone back.] _ Gotta go, but I’ll text you. We’ll grab coffee or something!

THE MASTER: Coffee? Yikes! You do  _ not _ want to see me on caffeine. It makes me think so fast that my thoughts are always five seconds in the future, and the rest of me is lagging behind. I’m always breaking off in the middle of sentences and running into walls. Which, granted, is not that much different from standard operating procedure, but trust me — on caffeine, it’s worse. I do all sorts of stupid things, just faster.

BILL  _ [laughing]: _ You  _ are _ different, huh? Very much the same — and yet very different. Look forward to finding out more about that. See ya!

CASEY  _ [aloud]: _ Yeeeeeeee!  _ [Signing.] _ Bye, Master! See you soon! *Pop pop clap snap!*

THE MASTER  _ [assuming dubious accent]: _ Goodbye, goodbye, dearest person and dearest person’s kid! I am looking forward to you again! *Slap slap pop pop clap!*


End file.
